I’m fed up of saying television is in a strange place at the moment. We’re all in our little silos watching things on all different platforms, sampling some new stuff, or perhaps revisiting shows we’ve loved and it never feels like everyone is on the same page. I could and would walk the streets wearing a sandwich board ranting about the brilliance of Severance and Bad Sisters but you have to remind yourself that the majority people don’t have Apple TV+. There are, however, a handful of platforms that can still be relied upon for creating hits that people are watching. Netflix can still create word of mouth of hits and HBO has so much goodwill and faith baked in that it can still deliver something fresh and exciting. That is, until recently.

HBO is in a very unsettling phase. TV’s obsession with how much they can get out of well-known and beloved intellectual property has dampened a lot of creativity but its use within HBO feels the most destructive. Take for example the new Mobster show which is nearing the end of its run. Not heard of it? That’s because it’s The Penguin, a spin-off The Batman which, from all accounts functions much better as an actual mob show than it does in furthering the story of the Gotham City villain. Then there’s the upcoming Dune prequel series, Dune: Prophecy, capitalizing on the successes of the two films, and if that weren’t enough they are also planning a Harry Potter TV series which will go into greater depth than the films did. All well-known and well-loved properties will find an audience, but not the sort of game-changing or boundary-pushing we’ve come to expect from a network synonymous with changing the perspective of what television was capable of achieving with early shows like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Band of Brothers. 

Even if we take the IP of it all as an annoying trend Hollywood is obsessed with, their original output has been lacklustre of late. I wrote a rather scathing review of The Regime then promptly forgot it existed. I don’t write reviews like that anymore. Partly because it’s not fun to dismiss something people have worked on and partly because there is so much television now that it’s far better and more productive use of time to champion something that people might otherwise miss. The Regime was a special case because on paper, it should have been another hit. It came from one of the writers of Succession, it had Kate Winslet in the lead as a dictator of a nondescript European country and was billed as a dark comedy. Most importantly, it was an original idea with a great cast and writing pedigree. Yes! In execution, the series felt immediately off. It was uneven, the tone was unclear but worst of all it didn’t know what it wanted to say. It had a muddled message and wasn’t funny enough to be comedy or serious enough to work as a drama. Tone is a very hard thing to get right, that’s why shows like Killing Eve and more recently Slow Horses are so well respected because they have a magical ability to be silly and slapstick one minute and deadly serious next. The Regime, for whatever reason just didn’t work which was a massive shame because it sounded so interesting. HBO’s latest comedy The Franchise about the behind the scenes goings on the set of a Marvel-esque movie also sounded interesting. A talented British cast, a good premise and Sam Mendes and Armando Iannucci serving as Executive Producers. Sadly, it’s another show that lacks focus. The sarcastic humour that worked so well in Veep feels almost mean-spirited. The characters are thinly drawn and the majority of the talent is doing variations on what we’ve seen them do before.  Much like The Regime, The Franchise feels unsure of what it wants to say about the movies it is satirising which makes it feel limp and lacking in bite.

It’s not all doom and gloom The White Lotus will be back in the new year, which remains one of the most inventive and exciting shows of HBO’s latest era. The Last Of Us somewhat tramples over my whole point about using well-known IP, but the show works so well thanks to stunning lead performances from Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey and the fact that the team behind the show know how to make episodes of television and not an overlong movie.  There’s also the buzzy Industry which praised but hasn’t reached the mainstream. All this is to say, HBO isn’t collapsing but that its focus has shifted in a far less exciting or forward-thinking way and that’s a huge problem. HBO has always been a place that celebrates freedom of expression, it’s partly why Michaela Coel partnered with them and the BBC for her deeply personal masterpiece I May Destroy You but increasingly, it’s feeling as if HBO is perhaps more risk-averse. Later this month, Somebody Somewhere, a small comedy with such low stakes it barely justifies its existence, but it is also one of the most serene, beautiful series on television. Created by comedian Bridget Everett, Somebody Somewhere is tender, and sweet and it shines a spotlight on a small group of friends. It’s slight but perfect and whilst I thank the TV Gods that it exists in the first place and that it has been allowed to end on its own terms, it feels like the last of its kind. It’s hard to imagine Somebody Somewhere being greenlit now. It’s miraculous that was given a chance in the first place but I feel we’ve moved away from that sort of television now. TV has always been the champion of small stories and those smaller stories are being slowly squeezed out as ideas that belong in the cinema encroach onto the smaller screen. It’s not just an HBO problem but it feels more pronounced there as HBO has always been seen as the birthplace of bold television that often sets the tone of what’s to come and if they’re slowing down, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of us true TV fans who crave new original storytelling.